»S 3525 
.0546 
F8 
1916 
Copy 1 




FUGITIVES 

By 
Isabel Moore 



New York: 
Printed by Roderic C. Penfield, 1600 Broadway 
1916 



if- 



CONTENTS 

The Spirit of Youth .9 

An April Fancy n 

The Turquoise God 13 

Island Possessions 18 

The Ice Dragon and The Sun God . . 29 

Destiny 33 

At the End of the Trail 35 



THE SPIRIT OF YOUTH. 

(Published in The New York Observer, April, 1909.) 

Away off in the heart of the Rocky Mountains 
a tiny baby River lived. 

Its cradle was a lake fringed round with crys- 
tals, and during all its infancy the Snow-Caps 
guided its uncertain footsteps. They were not 
very friendly, those old Snow-Caps, with their 
great seamed faces and their brows that often 
frowned at the laughter of the River. But a 
baby knows too much to be afraid! It laughed 
at the sun and played with the sunbeams; it 
laughed at the wind to which the fir trees bowed 
in homage ; and at night it sometimes awoke and 
laughed at the stars in its lap. 

As it grew older it grew just a little more 
serious, and there would creep into its heart the 
most wonderful pictures. 

By and by something else happened. It be- 
gan to be noticed by its companions, and this 
gave a pleasing sense of importance. Timid 
flowers nodded, the wind lingered, and the fir 
trees occasionally leaned their beautiful lengths 
across in greetings. 

Then, one day, a hunter tried to make friends. 
He was a rough old chap, with cheeks as fur- 
rowed as those of the mountains, and eyes like 
bits of wintry sky. The River passed along 
very quietly till the darkness came, when it grew 
brave again, and played hide-and-seek with the 
Wind, rushing about heedlessly and laughing up- 
roariously at each new tumble. Said the Hunter: 

"Little River, let me sleep." 

But the River only laughed with a sheer 
mocking cadence. 

"Sweet Spirit of the River," said the Hunter, 
"do not be in such a hurry; you will not like 
the plains and cities." 



This gave the River a first great serious 
thought, and it grew very silent for a time. 
Then the Hunter slept. 



* * * * 



Miles and miles away from the heart of the 
Rocky Mountains a broad, sweet-tempered 
River flows. It is very quiet and a little sad, 
but not unhappy, and in a low voice it murmurs : 
"Content and service. Content and service/' 
O, pure, whole-hearted River! O, helpful, 
patient River! Your strength comes from the 
mountains of your youth. What wonder if an 
old-time friend, the Wind, wings words of love 
back to the grim old Snow-Caps? 



10 



AN APRIL FANCY. 

(Published in Life, April, 190a) 

A little Maiden Wind tiptoed her way across 
a meadow. So dainty were her footsteps that 
the new grass hardly bent beneath them, and so 
gentle her caresses that not a single flower-bud 
turned aside. 

"What a sweet, sweet meadow," sighed the 
little Maiden Wind, catching her draperies in 
one hand and reaching out the other in gentlest 
greetings. 

During all the day she loitered through the 
meadow, and toward nightfall she came near the 
entrance of a city. She had never seen a city, 
so, when a spirit of adventure (to which little 
Maiden Winds are liable) took possession of 
her, she wandered in. 

To her great surprise she found the earth and 
air of the city cut into many passages and subtle 
turnings filled with human beings hurrying back 
and forth. She followed one man for a time, 
trying to discover why he hurried; but as she 
could not in the least understand his movements, 
she presently left him and amused herself by 
chasing stray things around corners and poking 
inquisitive fingers into all sorts of places never 
meant for the fingers of a little Maiden Wind. 

But she soon wearied. The great noise that 
had been imprisoned in the passages troubled 
her. She was constantly thinking how much 
more comfortable it would be out in the mead- 
ow where there was room enough. Then it 
suddenly occurred to her that possibly the noise 
was lost; that even the rushing people might 
also be lost. Perhaps they were all seeking the 
meadow and could not find it! 

Whereupon a great fear seized her that maybe 
she herself might never again see the beautiful, 



11 



beautiful meadow! And she felt a passionate 
terror of the great city, and began running wild- 
ly about, knocking into people and hindered by 
everything. 

"O dear, O dear," screamed the little Maiden 
Wind, dashing herself against a wall, "I can't 
get out, I can't get out, I say," and she flung her 
arms up over her head. 

Behind a basement window stood a City 
Child, pale and wistful. Outside, in an old box, 
some young plants lived; and they, too, were 
pale and wistful. At sight of them the little 
Maiden Wind burst into tears. 

"You dear, dear things," she sobbed, taking 
them for a moment into her arms. "Have you 
never see the meadow? I must find the mead- 
ow, for without it I shall die." 

And so, with sweet complaining, she passed 
on. 

"Mother," said the City Child, who had 
watched a few big drops of rain come splashing 
out of a clear sky upon his flowers, "Mother, 
the wind is crying!" 



12 



THE TURQUOISE GOD. 

(Published in Poet Lore, Autumn, 1906.) 

The Turquoise God was born white; but — 
urged by the Sun whom all gods and men obey 
— he yielded to the power of secret flame and 
put on a beautiful azure, the colour of the 
"heart of heaven." 

Consequently Turquoise, even unto this day, 
is so in sympathy with the skies that it is always 
changing in shade : light blue when the heavens 
are clear, dull and sometimes green when the 
heavens are in a sullen mood. And, as sym- 
pathy with heaven is but the medium for the 
sympathie humane, so in turn does Turquoise 
guard its owner from evil by drawing upon itself 
any malignant influence: growing pale when 
there is danger, and in all things being so helpful 
that there has arisen a proverb among mankind 
which says: "A turquoise given by a loving 
hand carries with it happiness and good 
fortune." 

But all this has come about in the long ages 
that have elapsed since in the Valley of White 
Turquoise in the land of the Incas the Turquoise 
God that was born white obeyed the Sun and 
became blue. 

Now the temple of the Sun stood in the City 
of the Kings, Coricaucha, which means the 
Place of Gold; — and certainly there was much 
gold in that place where, according to an old 
Chronicler, "every fountain, pathway and wall 
was regarded as a holy mystery." 

Among far-reaching fields of maize stood the 
Temple, builded of stone, simple and solid, as 
befitted the earthly dwelling of the deity who 
presided over the destinies of man; who gave 
light and warmth to the nations; whose breath 
was life to the vegetable world; who was the 



13 



father of the royal dynasty; and the founder of 
the Empire of the Incas. And far beyond the 
plateau on which it stood, toward the distant, 
magic west of the world, stretched the crests of 
the frozen Andes. 

Upon the chief altar of the Temple burned 
the sacred flame, cared for by the Virgins of the 
Sun. This was the holy of holies. At the west 
end of the Temple was emblazoned a represen- 
tation of the face of the Sun God, glancing in 
all directions through innumerable shafts of 
golden rays; and so placed that the Sun himself, 
when rising and shining in at the eastern en- 
trance, looked directly upon his prototype and 
lighted the whole edifice with fresh young glory. 
And, opening from the great chamber with its 
frieze of heavy gold, were various chapels sac- 
red to the other deities: silver-faced Moon 
Goddess, mother of the Incas; the sparkling 
stars; the iridescent Rainbow; and the mighty 
gods of Thunder and Lightning. 

These were the greater gods. Near them, 
like satellites, were the lesser gods, of whom the 
Turquoise God was one. But, although he was 
a lesser god, he was a very ancient god, associ- 
ated with Crystal, the creator of the world, 
whom the Incas had found among their prede- 
cessors in the land and who was yet older than 
their Sun God. 

It was during the Feast of Raymi, of the sum- 
mer solstice, when the Sun God returned to his 
people from the South, that the White Men 
came. There had long been predictions of this 
coming of a gleaming people, new children of 
the Sun. The oracles had said that the race of 
the Incas should become extinct with the twelfth 
Inca, who was now upon the throne. There 
was strife between the royal brothers. Comets 
had been seen in the heavens. Earthquakes had 



14 



shaken the land. The moon had been en-ringed 
with fire of many colors. A thunderbolt had 
fallen upon one of the royal palaces and burned 
it to ashes. An eagle, chased by hawks, scream- 
ing in the air, had been seen to hover above the 
great square of Cuzco; and was pierced by the 
talons of his tormentors. The king of birds had 
fallen lifeless in the presence of many of the 
Inca nobles, and the wise men read in the event 
an augury of their own destruction. 

Pilgrims were assembled, prostrate and 
breathless, for the first rays of the Sun God to 
strike his golden likeness in the Temple at the 
time of the Feast of Raymi. Conch and trum- 
pet and atabal brought forth barbaric melodies. 
The royal mummies, with their robes profusely 
ornamented, were seated in gold-embossed 
chairs, to welcome the Sun God. 

Then came the White Men, Pizzaro and his 
followers, in the name of the Holy Vicar of God 
and the Sovereign of Spain. 

Like thunder clouds, dense masses of warriors 
closed down upon the slopes of the mountains. 
There advanced a forest of crests and waving 
banners; of lances and battle-axes edged with 
gleaming copper. The ground shook with the 
tread of heavy cavalry. A trumpet sounded a 
prolonged note, and the Spaniards descended 
upon the beautiful and sacred city as it lay lap- 
ped in its verdant valley. They went directly 
to the square in front of the Temple. They 
proclaimed that the dynasty had fallen; the 
sceptre forever passed from among the Incas. 

Before this race of dazzling strangers, drop- 
ped from the clouds, the people fled. And it 
was not many days before flame enveloped the 
city of Coricaucha. Towers and huts and halls 
and palaces went down before it. Graves were 
rifled of their buried jewels; human beings were 

15 



tortured to extort hidden treasure; the royal 
mummies were stripped of their ornaments. 
The ancient seat of empire was laid in ashes — 
all but the Temple which stood ever forth 
against the flame — while the shadowy Andes 
looked down upon it all. 

So did the Spaniards to their brethren who be- 
came "a flock without a fold." And on the Tem- 
ple of the Sun they raised the Cross of Christ. 

The old gods fled. Only the Sun God, who 
in his manifold greatness could not desert his 
people, visited again that land. 



* * * * 



Along the narrow streets and by the banks of 
the crystal river that flowed through the city, 
hastened the Turquoise God. On through the 
straggling borders of houses along the outer 
edge of the city, on and again on among the rocks 
and waterfalls and woods, as though the Span- 
iards were close behind. Indeed they did hunt 
for him, for their appetite for gold had been 
somewhat appeased. 

But he eluded pursuit by a hundred leagues, 
north by the great highway of Cuzco. Along 
the Cordillera of the Andes over South America 
and the Isthmus, he entered into the land of the 
mighty Aztecs and the kingdom of Anahuac, 
where the war god, Mexitle, had builded his 
city at the direction of the eagle. And there he 
found a state of affairs curiously like that in the 
land of the Incas. Destruction and pillage by 
the omnipresent White Men were raging; the 
temples were in ruins; the older gods had fled. 

In that land the Turquoise God received the 
name of Chalchihuitl while he dwelt for a little 
space upon Turquoise Mountain; and, later on, 
hid in a cave where years and years afterwards 
were the famous turquoise mines of the Cerillos. 

16 



But nowhere could he find a safe retreat. So 
on he fled, northward, ever keeping near the 
ridge of the Great Divide, and passing the whole 
length of the tierra caliente: and yet again be- 
yond the vast tablelands where the hills stretch 
away and ever onward to the north. And on all 
the country round about over which he wan- 
dered, the Turquoise God left azure footprints. 

In the land of his final exile, among the mesas 
of the Zunis, he at last found refuge and a 
companion. 

The Goddess of Salt had for a very long time 
been greatly troubled by the people near her 
domain on the seashore who took away her 
snowy treasures without paying tribute, and so 
she forsook the ocean and went inland. 

But the people of New Mexico followed after 
her; and she, wearied to death of them, declared 
she would pass from their view forever, and 
penetrated further and further inland. When- 
ever she stopped beside a pool to rest she turned 
it salty; and she wandered so long about the 
great basins of the west that much of the water 
in them is very bitter. 

Then it was that she and the Turquoise God 
met and travelled on together hand-in-hand. 
Each had the same need of companionship. 
Each had lost all of this world except them- 
selves. Therefore they came to live for each 
other and to love each other very happily. 

Presently they came to a wonderful mesa, 
guarded by a high wall of sandstone. This wall 
they broke through, making a great arched por- 
tal to their dwelling. 

But the Goddess of Salt hit her head against 
the portal when passing under it and broke off 
one of her beautiful plumes so that it fell 
outside. 

And there it lies unto this day. 

17 



ISLAND POSSESSIONS. 
I 

An island is a jewel of earth: a jewel be- 
cause earth-born and not in despite of so being. 

It was on a transcendent day, crisp, sunshiny, 
wind-driven, that I lifted my enraptured gaze 
from the crested blue waters parting with a 
clean stroke at the steamer's prow, and beheld 
the vision. Mackinaw, the Michilimackinac 
of the Indians, rose out of the bosom of its straits 
sheer at the eastern end, low-lying at the west- 
ern, a realization of all dreams, a picture for the 
soul, the ideal lighted a-tip-toe on the world 
from distant realms of beauty. No valiant seek- 
er for the holy grail inadvertently chancing on 
his heart's desire could have been more stilled 
with satisfaction. I knew instantly that I had 
come into mine own. 

We drew near the wonder. Great cloud 
shadows massed across its woods and fields. 
The westering sun shot occasional glances from 
the virile sky. A motley collection of wharves 
and sheds and decrepit piles and island craft in- 
dicated the center of human activity; while, in 
a dazzling white zig-zag down the hill behind 
the fishing village, the wall of the road leading 
to the ancient fort stood out in sharp design. 
Here and there on the near-by hills were block 
houses and fortifications, all of the same snowy 
white that only fresh whitewash can give to di- 
lapidated structures. Although unknown to me 
at the time, Mackinaw is really not unlike in 
appearance some out-dated, fortified island of 
the Old World. 

A solstice of delight followed. We lived in 
tents on the bluff underneath Robinson's Folly. 
The members of the camping party, even my 
own relatives, are to me — and indeed were then 



— like wraiths of another sphere coming and go- 
ing in meaningless fashion among the genuinely 
serious interests of life. The tents themselves 
stand out as clearly in my recollection as they 
stood literally against their background of pines 
and cedars. I loved the tents. There were five 
of them besides the large central one, beyond 
which was the lean-to kitchen built of boughs 
where our colored cook performed prodigies of 
valour like the skilled prestidigitator that he 
was. Before the tents a steep, low-wooded de- 
clivity sloped to the shore of gleaming boulders 
and the tumbling waters of Lake Huron that 
stretched southward. The tents, yes, I loved the 
tents, every flap and rope and peg of them! We 
lived in them for eight weeks. 

Robinson's Folly was a steep cliff rounding 
the southeastern edge of the island. On its top 
cedar trees grew in thickets and among them, 
following the contour of the cliff, a straggling 
riband of a footpath led the adventurer on and 
on toward the natural curiosity of wave-worn 
stone called Arch Rock. This little path, so 
friendly and yet so daring, was a bit of reality 
that led through the enchantment, a clew to the 
labyrinthian maze. With it I have strange 
associations. I knew it well ; but it was not until 
many years afterwards that I began to dream 
about it. I was in a foreign country when the 
dream first happened, a trifle homesick, and 
quite unbidden there came crowding upon me 
thoughts of the old camping-ground, Robinson's 
Folly, and the resistless, wayward path along the 
eyebrow of the bluff at whose base broke the 
fresh-water surf. That night I was there in my 
troubled sleep, with the unaccountable amplifi- 
cation that as I was running (a child again) the 
way I used to run on that path gathering mo- 
mentum for a dash up a succeeding incline 



19 



everything quite suddenly ended, the path, the 
dream, and myself, at the very spot where the 
slight downward grade changed into the upward 
grade. 

I thought no more of the matter. Then, sev- 
eral years later, I again dreamed the same dream 
— a child running down the path along the bluff 
of Robinson's Folly — and stopped again at iden- 
tically the same point. During succeeding 
years I have dreamed this dream a half dozen 
times perhaps, apparently with nothing in my 
outer life to suggest it, and always breaking off 
short at that same spot, which not only marks 
the change in the momentum of the runner, but 
from which there can be had a glimpse of a 
strange, cone-shaped rock embedded in the 
shore. Who can interpret the significance of 
this dream recurrence? Why should every- 
thing always become suddenly blotted out at just 
that place? Sometimes it has seemed like a pre- 
monition. Can destiny decree my return some- 
day to Mackinaw, a walk along the familiar 
path, and an extinction of my being at that par- 
ticular dip in the way? I never stopped there 
when I was a child. 

There were other children in the camping 
party, two boys. The elder played with me en- 
tirely, possibly because he had no contemporary 
and preferred an adoring small girl to a boy so 
youthfully inferior as to make his questioning of 
mandates an insult. He and I devised one sport 
that we cared for above all others. The para- 
phernalia consisted of a barrel stave with a hole 
bored in one end of it, through which was tied 
a stout rope ; and the game itself was to float this 
barrel stave, one of us balanced nicely upon it, 
while the other gently played out the rope from 
the beach. We did this turn about, and the 
score ran neck and neck all summer as to which 



20 



could go the farthest before losing his equili- 
brium. The end of the long wharf was the out- 
ermost limit of achievement, and it is altogether 
a wonder that we neither of us was drowned, for 
the upsets were many. It was an interesting ac- 
complishment in its way. I wonder how many 
people could do it, young or old. It requires 
confidence and perfect balance and unswerving 
attention to the matter in hand, so that, quite 
unconsciously, in our play, we became experts 
of poise. I am inclined to believe that only 
very young human beings could do it at all. 

There were Indians at Mackinaw then. 
Tamed Indians, it is true, and yet not so tamed 
but that they were a fairly good sample of the 
breed. I followed then in fascinated silence, 
whenever I had a chance, to their tiny settlement 
where the squaws wove baskets and fashioned 
various articles out of birch bark for sale at 
Fenton's Bazaar. They also made delightful 
mococks of birch bark, ornamented with porcu- 
pine quills and filled with soft, powdery maple 
sugar of a consistency different from that of any 
other maple sugar. These were five cents 
apiece. The curio shop was at the head of the 
long wharf, not far from the old John Jacob 
Astor House, an hotel that was once the original 
office of the big trading company and in which 
could be seen its early account books. 

It is thirty years since I knew Mackinaw. I 
am told it has become very fashionable; that 
even the Mission House was finally overrun 
with people; that the cottages of wealthy Chi- 
cagoans and Detroiters are everywhere; that the 
native Indian-French-English population no 
longer earns its living by fishing, but by serving 
the intruder. Sic transit gloria mundi. 



21 



II 

A trip to the coast of Maine several years later 
is a much less distinct remembrance than Michi- 
limackinac. Although a long summer was spent 
at Mt. Desert, only two pictures stand out prom- 
inently amid the sailing, the fishing, and the 
beach camp-fires. One of these is the journey 
from Portland up the coast, when the whole 
world seemed to be wrapped in an iridescent, 
drifting fog through which now and then stray 
islands broke or peeped or shimmered. Mouse 
Island particularly enchained my fancy. I 
longed to stop there. But our relentless and 
persistent steamer bore us away into yet more 
distant magics. The whole day was a fairy- 
land. Islands, islands, in every direction. 

Late in the season, after one of the innumer- 
able sails up Somes Sound in the yacht of which 
we had the exclusive use, we were one night be- 
calmed. All that day a fair breeze had stood 
by, but at sundown it flickered out. We were 
miles away from our hotel. The party was too 
large to be contained in the yacht's one small 
rowboat. Unless we wanted to spend the entire 
night on the yacht, a contingency for which none 
were prepared, the only way to return was for 
three or four to go in the rowboat and send as 
quickly as possible other boats to take off the re- 
maining members of the party. It would be a 
slow return at best. But it was that return, 
about two o'clock in the morning, in a boat al- 
most level with the dark, cold waters, that con- 
stitutes the other picture. At every dip of the 
oars, strokes that were long, leisurely and even, 
into the mysterious liquid over which we were 
gliding, myriad phosphorescent bubbles and 
balls and tortuous twistings broke into life, trail- 
ing off into the depths with golden uncertain 



22 



ramblings. Or, again, the appearance of the 
sea was as if a million golden ducats had been 
suddenly emptied overboard. 

Above was another world of golden sparkles, 
for it was a clear, cool, calm, starlight night. 
Our small and insignificant craft seemed sus- 
pended in the universe — for an illimitable 
period. Time and eternity had found each 
other. 

Ill 

Two-thirds of the way across the Atlantic 
from New York lie "certaine flitting isles," at 
once pastoral and barren, possessed of forbid- 
ding crags as well as of laps and hollows of moss- 
like fields. They sleep through the centuries in 
what has been called Azorean Torpor, do these 
nine islands of the lost Atlantis. What matters 
it to them that they may be the only existing 
monument of a traditionary civilization? That 
Poseidon perhaps once ruled the continent that 
gave them birth? That the daughters of the 
Hesperides are said to have guarded their pre- 
cious apples somewhere near by? That Plato 
recorded the vanished glories of the Atlanteans? 
That a gigantic statue is said to have once existed 
on the island of Corvo — sometimes called by 
sailors the Isle of Marco because they use it in 
their reckonings — astride* the bare back of a 
horse: cut out of the solid rock; bareheaded; 
wrapped in a capa com bedem; one hand resting 
on the mane of his horse and the other extended, 
the fingers folded with the exception of the in- 
dex finger which pointed to 

"the golden remote wild west where the sea with- 
out the shore is?" 

Like Sir Richard Grenville I "fell in" with 
the Azores, and the falling was due to the inval- 
idism of a relative for whom a puzzled physi- 



23 



cian had recommended a sea voyage as a nerve 
sedative. We sailed for them in the Barque 
Veronica from New Bedford, and were three 
weeks going over, a resplendent memory in it- 
self. Perhaps, however, crossing the Atlantic 
in a sailing vessel is an experience best enjoyed 
in one's youth. Mature years feel too keenly 
the material deprivations. Almost invariably 
and of necessity the food is poor, the drinking 
water tepid, the bathing facilities limited. Yet 
to a child such a trip may be a perfected en- 
chantment. Ah, the good Barque Veronica! 
She was wrecked many years later in a storm 
off one of the Madeiras. Disabled, she drifted 
out to sea and was drowned. With her perished 
all the crew with the exception of the Captain, 
Narcisse d' Azevado and my particular friend, 
the steward, Jose de Costa, who was miraculous- 
ly saved in some way the details of which I have 
never learned. He was a tall, lean Portuguese, 
with a face as beautiful and clear-cut as that of 
some old, fine, shell cameo; and his restrictions 
on plum duff were rigorous where I was con- 
cerned, for he could never be prevailed upon to 
give me a third helping. 

We visited all of the nine islands. Over them, 
although out of the range of those the farthest 
west and east of it, presides Pico, the weather 
prophet of the isles that is so suggestive of the 
pictures of Fujiyama. In Fayal, directly oppo- 
site, we lingered three days. A letter of intro- 
duction to Consul Dabney there ensured us the 
most hospitable attentions. At Terceira I spent 
several hours in the care of the ship's doctor, 
climbing the heights of the fortifications above 
Angra where the captive African king was al- 
ways busy in the docile employment of basket 
weaving; eating fruit in the Public Gardens; 
buying gourd water bottles in the market; and 

24 



noting with interest the great variety of ox-carts. 

But it is St. Michaels — the insula bella of the 
group — that I know best and love best. We 
stopped at the little English hotel, and it has 
always been one of my happiest associations; an 
unconscious setting to many a romantic tale as 
I have read it; a center of peace around which 
have revolved the phantom phases of my own 
life. No matter what changes have occurred, 
no matter how tumultuous events have been, I 
have always held a sweet inner consciousness 
that there was one place in the world which re- 
mained unchangeable in its serenity, its garden 
fragrances, its human kindlinesses. 

One of the people I met was a lady living 
by herself in a pictorial old house, one of the 
large family connections of the historian Pres- 
cott. It was her mother, William Hickling 
Prescott's aunt, who acted as his amanuensis 
when he, only nineteen years old, visited his 
grandfather who was then United States Consul 
at Ponta Delgada; and she showed me in her 
album a faded photograph of a daguerreotype 
of her famous cousin taken during his stay 
there. The garden belonging to this lady was 
undoubtedly one of the sweetest gardens there 
ever was; and beyond it stretched an orange 
grove. It is said that in the days when St. 
Michaels oranges were grown in large quantities 
for shipment to England, the fragrance of the 
blossoms could be often smelled by seamen who 
were out of sight of land. 

Forty miles to the south of St. Michaels is the 
island of Santa Maria, "a place of no great 
force," as the Earl of Cumberland once upon a 
time described it. To me it was always intense- 
ly interesting because of its associations with 
Christopher Columbus, who likewise "fell in" 
with the Azores, or at least with this one of 

25 



them, on his return voyage from his discovery 
of the New World. Washington Irving tells 
the story in his Life of him whom the Spaniards 
called "the Stranger of the Threadbare Cloak:" 
— how a terrific gale caused him to run along- 
side the little isle for shelter; how, in fulfillment 
of his vow, he intended to land there and give 
thanks to the Virgin for his preservation; how 
he met with hostilities from the Portuguese 
Governor so that he himself dared not land; how 
half of his men did go ashore, however, and 
walked, barefooted and in their shirts, to the 
hermitage of Our Lady of the Angels; how they 
were taken prisoners by the troops, but were fin- 
ally released. The Chapel of Our Lady of the 
Angels, still stands, practically as it was then, 
and almost unknown to collectors of Americana. 
Islands have much to give, for "all that is 
beautiful belongs to all who love it." 



IV 



England and Manhattan are said to be islands. 
But, however insular geographically, they are 
not islands in spirit. They are continents. And 
the happenings on continents are history, either 
personal or general, rather than chance joys. 

How many islands, real islands, one would 
love to know! The Indies, East and West; the 
Scilly Isles; Cyprus; Iona; the Balerics; and 
Mauritius, that is said to rise and fall, however 
imperceptibly, with the tides of the sea. Then 
there are the hordes of vanishing isles that yearly 
are being washed away, sinking, sinking, sink- 
ing to that from whence they came. A liking 
for islands becomes an obsession. 

One that lies at our doors and affords much 
pleasure if taken rightly is Staten Island. But 

26 



it must always be borne in mind that it is what 
we ourselves bring to the enchantment that 
serves as interpreter. 

There are places in the southern end of Staten 
Island, particularly off over the Dongan Hills, 
that afford a true breathing-place to the lungs 
and soul of a pent-up New Yorker. More than 
once in Springtime or in russet Autumn have I 
dropped earthly cares, taken the ferry across the 
bay, and renewed myself. When I first began 
doing this I was led on by a hope of finding two 
old Dutch windmills that are said to have once 
stood a few miles beyond South Beach. Alas, 
I never found even a vestige of them. They 
had gone the way of all flesh long before my day. 
But I found a wooded hillside, part of an ancient 
dismantled estate, where squirrels ran riot 
among the oak trees; and from which could be 
glimpsed the boundless sand dunes and coppery 
salt marsh grasses mowed down by the winds. 
It was one of Nature's Snug Harbours; an isle 
within an island; one of those "isles of idleness" 
that has ever held my soul in "lingering 
duresse." 

From the beach below Fort Wadsworth I 
beheld the conflagration of Coney upon one of 
the occasions when it was destroyed only to rise 
again, phoenix-like, from its own ashes. The 
time was twilight and the sky and sea were 
almost the same colour, a sad slateiness. Sud- 
denly a giant monster of flame and smoke sprang 
into being, throwing lurid light through the 
slateiness to the zenith above my head and the si- 
lent water-line at my feet. One vast hand of the 
monster crumpled eagerly along the roofs of 
Coney, gathering them in like so much tissue 
paper, the other flung disaster recklessly to right 
and left. From my distant point of view the 
whole performance was startling in its absolute 

27 



silence. Not very long after, the monster, 
gorged and weary, sank to a replete repose. 
Only occasional belchings of smoke and fitful 
gleams of flame on the nearer sky and sea record- 
ed the holocaust. 

I have never been to Coney Island. When 
people speak of its awesome pleasures, I revert 
imaginatively to the only version of Coney 
known to me. Nobody else knows that. Nobody 
else can ever know it. I gloat over the posses- 
sion. It is a picture. A picture typical of 
grim force; of the elemental power of fire be- 
fore which man's creations become as if they 
had never been; of a riot of colour such as no 
painter has ever dared; of silence ineffable. 

V 

So in this work-a-day world we now and then 
chance upon island possessions, like oases in 
"the desert of the sea." 

Somewhere, sometime, there must be an ulti- 
mate island. Will it be one of those fugitive, 
alluring, vanishing visions that led St. Brenan 
on and out across tumultous and uncharted 
wastes? Never was a mad chase after bliss 
more elusive than his. 

But perhaps all Islands of the Blest are not 
so unattainable. Let us ship with a stout heart 
as able seamen and sail away. 

At the vanishing-point on the horizon : — there 
will be the ultimate island. However we steer 
our course, good old-fashioned faith in Provi- 
dence and the quintessence of Bohemianism be- 
come almost undistinguishable one from the 
other by the time we reach the vanishing-point. 



28 



THE ICE DRAGON AND THE SUN GOD. 

(Published in Poet Lore, Spring, 1908.) 

In the far and gleaming North lay the Ice 
Dragon, fast asleep. His great lazy length was 
coiled and looped among the icebergs; his head 
was pillowed against the North Pole; the Au- 
rora Borealis cast shafts of stately light across 
his repose. 

After infinite slumber, certain slight dream- 
ings half disturbed him. He moved uneasily, 
and his ragged fins cracked against the icefloes 
so that the sound was somewhat like a bitter 
wind among icicles. The shifting lights gleam- 
ed pellucid on his green and scintillating skin, 
while an occasional shaft revealed the colour of 
his sides, and that colour was of a dull orange. 
But the ridge of his whole great tortuous body 
was luminously black, like black crystal. 

Gradually he raised his eyelids, heavy with 
the hoar rime of sleep, and the orbs of his eyes 
were like twin winter sunsets, round and very 
large, with a straight horizon line across the cen- 
ter of each. Above this line was the half of a 
pupil, like a setting sun in a cold sea, from which 
orange and lemon lights were reflected in the 
semicircle of the eye below the horizon line. 

The polar ice loosened somewhat. The Ice 
Dragon uncoiled himself, and, slowly swaying 
from side to side, shook himself free. Quivers 
of life travelled up and down his orange colored 
sides. The sunset lights of his eyes became 
more lurid than they had been heretofore. 
Lazily he rolled like a porpoise at play; making 
his way into a more open space, lashing the half- 
frozen waters with his mighty tail. Dim va- 
pours beset his eyes. 

A glacier, long encradled among the ice 
mountains, he now descended on waves of ava- 

29 



lanche. Young, trembling trees were swept 
aside. Boulders were flung high out of his im- 
perious way. Monarchs of the forest yielded 
unquestioning homage. Wild crags were hurl- 
ed and crushed before him. On, on, and yet 
again on, across all the lands of the earth he 
made his progress. 

Then, quite unexpectedly, he met the Sun 
God. 

The Sun God had come up from the home of 
gold where the valley floor is as green as emer- 
ald; where butterflies of great size and of lumin- 
ous iridescent colours are ever fluttering about, 
and where birds of sweet song and gorgeous 
plumage rest in the foliage of the fruit trees. 
The skies above him are always of serene sap- 
phire blue. And the river running through that 
valley is as the fountain of life itself; indeed, it 
is the Fountain of Life. 

Across the brow of the Sun God was writ in 
the spirit of flame the word Abracadabra, which 
is his name among certain ancient peoples of the 
world, and in his right hand he carried a divin- 
ing rod whose magic power was that of alchemy 
to transmute all base metals into gold. His 
beautiful hair of light streamed like golden ban- 
ners up into the radiant skies. 

Wonderful was the combat that ensued be- 
tween the Ice Dragon and the Sun God. Day 
after day they struggled. First one was victori- 
ous and then the other was victorious. Earth, 
the battlefield, shook beneath the weight of con- 
test. Moist equatorial winds and gentle rains 
were urged by the Sun God into his service to 
cloud the vision of his adversary; and the 
streaming mists from the deadly contortions of 
the Ice Dragon were lifted by the Sun God unto 
himself. 



30 



Finally the potent Sun prevailed. Before 
the omniscient forces of light and heat the con- 
vulsive struggles of his foe died down. The Ice 
Dragon became entirely lost and incorporated 
into the Nirvana of Flame. 

Then said the Sun God: 

"I am the Soul of the World." 

And the whole earth became joyous and fair 
to look upon. 

"I temper the steel of the world." 

And the earth approached him. 

"Where light shines there also force radiates." 

And the valleys unfolded. 

"I am the symbol of Eternity." 

And butterflies came into existence. 

"The heat of motion expands the soul." 

And the metamorphosis of secret flame — in- 
spiration — sprang upward in agitated rapture. 

The Sun God ran his hands along the sides of 
the mountains, and forests leaped forward at his 
touch — forests whose golden lights and thou- 
sands of sylvan genii greeted their Master with 
song. Praises of the great Spirit of Life re- 
sounded also from the mountain heights. Waters 
came leaping and laughing down from the up- 
land valleys. Rainbows shimmered. The Sun 
God plucked the leaves of the trees, breathed 
upon them, and they flew away upon the air as 
birds. 

Always upon the lips of the Sun God was the 
sweet word Aprilis, which meaneth "to open." 
It was the password of his law. It was the eric 
of his wisdom. 

Then the Sun God rested after his triumph: 
while throughout the length and breadth of the 
land went the proclamation: 

"The Sun God has laid his invisible hand up- 
on the earth." 

The Red Men said: 



31 



"The Ice Dragon is slain." 

The White Men merely noticed that Spring 
had come again. 

And Women said : 

"We must have new garments. What are the 
present fashions?" 



32 



DESTINY. 

Deep in the northern forests lived a Pine Tree. 
She was young and strong, and there breathed 
from her the Spirit of the Joy of Life. At all 
times did she whisper pleasing thoughts into the 
still, sweet solitude of her own heart. 

During the summers, birds from afar rested 
within her arms; breezes sighed out their melo- 
dies for her understanding; gentle rains freshen- 
ed her; grey and red lichens spread themselves 
at her feet. 

During the winters, hail stung her sharply; 
snows cast their weight upon her; wet cloud en- 
circled her head; the cold caused her to tingle 
and exult. 

She loved her life, nor knew that what she 
loved could be to her undoing. 

But there came a day when the knowledge of 
this was given her. It was at the time of the 
year when all things were ripe; when, for almost 
a week, a somber silence had hung over the hill- 
sides and the leaves of the forests had hardly 
dared to breathe. Even the squirrels had ceased 
their gibbering and looked askance. Then the 
Master of the Storm bestirred himself. Wild 
creatures crept to hiding. A steady whispering 
of conflict spread itself abroad. The clouds be- 
came dark as night and swirled like the seething 
in a cauldron. Lightnings quivered. Thund- 
ers broke through all the uproar. The rain beat 
down. The forests bent their heads. 

When the Storm had passed and the shy Sun 
gave a watery look around, he saw that the Pine 
Tree had been scorched and seared. She stood 
as erect as ever; as tall as ever; as unfaltering as 
ever; but, from the crown to the ground, a great, 
twisted, gaping wound had driven into her very 
heart. She was bereft of her symmetry; bereft 

33 



of her graceful outreaching lengths; bereft of 
the Joy of Life. 

For many months the Pine Tree stood half 
dead. Then, in one fair springtime, a slight 
stirring of the sap awoke a dim consciousness. 
The stirring quickened; and, in one place less 
numbed than the rest, a few tender twigs crept 
forth. 

Finding the outer world genial, the tender 
twigs enlarged and throve until they formed 
quite a cluster two-thirds up the trunk of the 
Pine Tree. And they whispered into the 
wounded heart: 

"There is still something to live for." 

"Possibly," said the Pine Tree. 

"Life is very beautiful." 

"I know that," said the Pine Tree. 

Then she made a great effort and roused her- 
self and threw out more twigs. 

But, when she had done all that she could, 
there still remained the deep scar of her heart 
and her sheer naked length towering far above 
the bushy green, up, up, toward the eternal sky. 

Finally, she ceased all effort. The green 
clung to her sides and flourished somewhat as 
she stood — waiting. 

Yet, even in her shattered plight, so strong and 
high was she that an eagle rested on her topmost 
branch. 



34 



AT THE END OF THE TRAIL. 
I 

The Canyon of Chaco is one of those long and 
mighty gulches that have been cloven by the tor- 
rents of past and changing ages down, down, 
and yet again down, from the heights of the 
grim old snowcaps to the level of the prairies 
where it finally debouches in great waves of 
earth suggesting the undulations of a grey-green 
sea that, ever rising and yet ever beaten down 
by a compelling wind, now and then, in wanton 
playfulness, flings out upon the air a snatch of 
gleaming spray. 

Upon the crest of these transfixed billows, 
and almost within the jaws of the Canyon of 
Chaco, there rests a lap of park-like land, 
fringed about its outer edges with gnarled 
and twisted tamaracks, through the venerable 
branches of which the night winds always croon. 
Their roots cradle a thicket of wild roses; and, 
far above and beyond them, the Navajo Moun- 
tains form a jagged line of white against the 
skies. 

A man passed — one night many years ago — 
along the trail that had been trodden by the feet 
of passing men on the lowest level of the Canyon. 
His movement was quiet and rapid; and an 
Apache would have noted that he walked in the 
Mexican manner, with his toes turned out. 

Over his sinewy shoulders was slung a white 
buffalo hide, caught by a clasp of roughly hewn 
green turquoise wrought with the workmanship 
of an ancient people. 

In one hand he carried a club that had been 
curiously carved from the horn of a giant elk. 

As the defile opened suddenly beyond the 
tamaracks he came to a cautious halt. 



35 



Directly before him was the unexpected glow 
of a newly made fire, and his quick eyes discern- 
ed a rim of dark human forms sitting and lying 
about on the ground. All was silence, except 
for the occasional falling of an ember, the wind 
in the tamaracks, and the near-by bubbling of a 
spring that nourished the wild rose thicket. 

The stranger threw himself full length on the 
ground to study details. These men before him 
were not preparing for slumber, he concluded. 
Their attitude was that of waiting for the hap- 
pening of an event. 

About the fire they had built a gigantic corral 
of the logs of pinyon wood, cedar, and juniper, 
interwoven with brush. On the far side of this 
"Circle of Darkness" — as it was called by those 
who made it — what seemed to be Shaman moved 
in and out among the shadows; and close to its 
inner circle squatted a dozen or more Apache 
youths, with drums placed before them. 

The stranger crawled slowly forward, with 
great care and an odd precision of motion, until 
he was quite close. Then he rested a moment, 
for he felt himself to be heavy with the weari- 
ness of the body — having already lost four sleeps 
in succession. 

Suddenly, he arose to his full height. He 
straightened himself far beyond a perpendicular 
position until he was like a well drawn and thor- 
oughly seasoned bow, and — himself the sturdy 
arrow likewise, sent to the bulls-eye of his own 
strong purpose — strode fearlessly into the ring 
of firelight that revealed his presence. The 
light also showed a lock of white hair in the 
tangled mass of black, that hung strangely over 
his left temple in such a way as to suggest a mis- 
laid tuft from his buffalo skin. 

There was an instant alarm. There was a 
confused reaching out for weapons. There was 

36 



a throttled murmur of menace. 

Quickly, the stranger laid his horn club before 
him on the ground, indicating by this action 
that he placed himself at their mercy. 

"I claim the right of asylum," he said in a 
strange patois of Spanish and the Apache 
dialect. 

The dark men paused. 

One of the Chiefs stepped out in advance of 
the others. Paint was streaked fantastically 
across his cheeks; his arms and wrists were 
adorned with bracelets; a pair of short skin leg- 
gings encased his legs ; and his breechclout was 
held by a girdle of human skin. From his 
shoulders fell a hide jacket that was fringed with 
scalp locks; and his own long hair was adorned 
with a profusion of eagle feathers that had been 
dyed red. 

This personage advanced with a swaying mo- 
tion like that of a python snaring its prey. 

"What is your people?" 

"I am of the people of the First of the Seven 
Lineages whose only God is the Sun." 

"And what of them?" 

"They are the Nation of the Seeds of Flow- 



ers." 



"From what lands?" 

"From the Place of the Herons." 

"And of what clan art thou?" 

"Of the Clan of the Wolf that is white." 

"What know we of the Wolf that is white?" 

"The Wolf that is white is he before whom 
the Chinchimecas hide their face." 

"Where did the Chinchimecas hide their 
face?" 

"Upon the banks of the Great Lake." 

"When was this?" 

"The Chinchimecas hid their face in the day 
when the Voice fell from Heaven." 



37 



"What said the Voice from Heaven to the 
Chinchimecas?" 

"The Voice from Heaven cried unto the 
Chinchimecas on that day when they hid their 
face, 'O, my Children, the time of your destruc- 
tion is come!' It was as the voice of a woman 
in pain." 

By this speech the Apaches knew that he be- 
longed to the Parcialidades, the first of the seven 
great divisions of the Aztecs ; and that he came 
from the province of Aztlan in Mexico that, 
according to the Spanish Chronicler, "continued 
a long time mightie." 

A second stalwart warrior stepped into the 
light and said: 

"Thou art then our brother. We are of the 
Coyote Clan." 

"I am the Wolf of the Sun," said the first 
Chieftain. 

"Me they call Lone Wolf," said the stranger. 

Whereupon his right of asylum for the night 
was acknowledged by all, and he was conducted 
to the lodge of the Medicine Men. 

During the latter part of the colloquy, the 
youths about the fire had begun a crooning chant 
to the accompaniment of slurred drum beats. 

Presently a number of the others broke from 
the ring of logs behind which they had been 
crouching; and yelling like lost souls, formed in 
a circle about the now blazing fire. They were 
entirely naked and perfectly white, having 
smeared themselves with some substance that 
caused their bodies to glisten like marble. Each 
carried an unlighted torch of shredded cedar 
bark. 

Gradually, almost creepingly, their irregular 
steps assumed a more decided swing; and as his 
fancy dictated, each adopted a pose — now that 
of a conqueror; then that of one who was 



threatening a foe above him, or, again, striking 
a foe that was fallen. One warrior minced along 
like a village girl at a rustic dance. Another 
bowed gracefully to right and left as he circled. 

Many darted toward the furnace in their 
midst, trying to light their torches at its outer 
edge. Again and again they tried this, some- 
times singly and in one dash, and sometimes sev- 
eral of them in unison with an undulatory 
motion. Some cast themselves upon the ground 
and approached the blaze upon their stomachs 
like writhing serpents. 

At last, one by one, they accomplished the 
feat. Then, all the torches flaming noisily, the 
capering, blanched figures began racing madly 
after each other around the roaring center. As 
it became possible for them to do so, they spat 
upon each other to secure the mystic protection 
of the Powers Invisible. 

On, on they dashed ; in a state of frenzied an- 
tics, all the time emitting piercing yells. Each 
lashing the Brave before him, or rubbing the 
fire-brand against himself, they soon became like 
maniacs, literally enveloped in flame. 

Finally a brand of one of the fire magicians 
burned low and went out. Dropping it, he 
rushed from the Circle. In due time another; 
and then yet another; went forth. Before long 
they had all vanished. 

An aged Medicine Man, accompanied by a 
youth, then arose, amid the monotonous whir- 
ring of the drums. The fire was rapidly dying 
down. 

Presently, the Venerable One, taking a bowl 
from his assistant, lifted it high above his head 
and poured from it a slender stream of water 
upon the embers, pronouncing as he did so, in 
solemn tones, the Prayer of Dismantling. 

39 



As the night had advanced, its quiet stateliness 
had become troubled by brooding clouds that 
wound their way down from the fastnesses of the 
range. 

The Apaches lay upon their backs and a great 
silence held them. To their understanding, a 
battle of the elements in mid-air, in that place 
and following their Dance of Death, was sym- 
bolic of a coming warfare between men, when 
the dead would lie on the bosom of the earth, 
and starvation and pestilence would stalk 
abroad. They believed that the Cini Cigini, or 
Sacred People, fought in the elements: and 
the Cini Cigini waged bitter conflict that night. 
Phantom cries rent the air. Flights of arrows 
hurtled. Occasional weapons clashed. 

Gradually, towards dawn, the leaden heavens 
became less tumultuous and took on a less 
sombre hue. And, at last, across the undulating 
seas of prairie that stretched away to the east- 
ward, there shot out a gleam of orange light as 
the Lord of Fire and Light and Life, in whose 
propitious ceremonial of the Death Dance the 
Apaches had just participated, lifted a heavy 
eyelid upon the world. 

II 

The Apaches were a proud and warlike race, 
not meriting, at this time, the title of 'Ishmae- 
lites of the West' by which they were afterwards 
known. They were on the lands that had been 
theirs for generations : yet — after they destroyed 
in 1670 the Seven Cities of Cibola that "mak- 
eth shew to bee a faire citie" as says the Chron- 
icler, Fray Marcos — the hand of every man 
turned against them. 

Not only were they at bitter enmity with the 
Quiviras whom they had overcome, but also 
with the Spanish of the Mexican border. This 

40 



came about when several of the Zuni villages 
threw themselves upon the protection of the 
Apache-Navajos, against the Spanish subjuga- 
tion which had been in process for a hundred 
and fifty years or more. 

It had been a mistaken step on the part of the 
Zunis, the 'Silent People.' The temptation of 
seizing the helpless villages for their own was 
too great for the Apaches to withstand. Know- 
ing well the spirit of their one time foes, but 
now needy suppliants, and that the strength of 
despair which had so long held out against the 
Spanish would enable them to resist their yet 
more ancient enemy, the Apaches assembled in 
great numbers, with reinforcements from the 
people beyond, as the Apaches called their tribal 
brethren, the Navajos, on the far side of the 
mountains. The appeal of the Zunis had been 
a desperate one; and now the Apaches would 
have not only the Zunis, but also the Spanish, to 
contend with. 

Among the gathering were many clans and 
bands, such as the Apache Mojaves, and the 
Apache Yumas, and a few of the very blood- 
thirsty Chiricahua Apaches. There were also 
some of the cliff-dwelling Sobaypuris, and some 
of the Nakaydi or descendants of Mexican cap- 
tives, the Tontos, and the Coyote Clan. When 
on the war-path, all these ramifications of the 
great Apache-Navajo tribe camped together 
and went into battle side by side against the com- 
mon enemy. 

It was the season when the buffaloes had mi- 
grated to the north; the season called by the 
grim Apache savages the "Mexican Moon" 
because of its being the time of their annual 
raids upon the Spanish frontier. 

Near the borderland of what is now Texas, 
but which the Spanish called Isleta, the pueblos 



41 



of the Zunis — frail villages of poles and brush- 
wood — dragged out their last few days of pre- 
carious existence. In the amber light of 
morning sunshine, after the storm, smoke curled 
up in dreamy spirals. Hundreds of mustangs 
dotted the upper plains, whose gentle undula- 
tions were of a rich velvety verdure studded with 
occasional sand lilies and flowering cactii. 

Upon this inviting picture the Apaches swept 
down, about three thousand strong, from the 
towering western cliffs of milk-white quartz that 
were rimmed with deep green pine foliage. 

A distant roar like that from a sea-shell, a 
small voice of an infinite noise, heralded their 
approach. Like a whirlwind of the desert they 
came, riding their little prairie trained ponies. 

The villages were stricken with a palsy of ter- 
ror. They had hoped till the last moment that 
their old time foes would grant them protection 
against the common enemy of the Spanish; that, 
as members of the great aboriginal families, the 
internal feud would be temporarily lost sight of. 

But now they knew their fate. They were at 
the mercy of the yellow, painted demons: and, 
while certain warrior bands made ready to with- 
stand the onslaught, these did it more as a matter 
of habit than of conviction, for they in reality 
shared the general feeling that their time had 
come. 

Nothing short of a miracle could have saved 
them; and no miracle happened. War was be- 
gun in the usual infernal fashion. Blood was 
freely shed; cries and curses rent the air; the 
mustangs stampeded and, breaking into a lope, 
were soon at the vanishing point on the horizon. 
The fire demons were loosened and, in an incred- 
ibly short time, the Zuni pueblos — all that had 
remained of the famous Seven Cities of Cibola 
— were ruin and smoldering ashes. 

42 



Rushing furiously in the footsteps of 
slaughter and flame, the soldier of fortune, Ton- 
saroyoo, or Lone Wolf — he who had claimed 
the right of asylum — entered an adobe hut from 
the interior of which smoke was rising. A cur- 
tain of dressed buffalo hide hung at the 
entrance; and a small blue flame, dimly burning 
on a tripod in the center of the single room, fit- 
fully lighted the interior so that he could distin- 
guish a number of low couches ranged round the 
walls. 

Seeing nothing that he wanted, he was about 
to go out again, when his knees knocked against 
something soft in the smoke. 

Quickly on the defensive, he was about to 
strike a downward blow, when his vision cleared 
sufficiently for him to distinguish a slender little 
girl, whose eyes of sapphire blue were raised to 
him more in grief and wonder than in alarm. 
Something in her attitude of trust caused him to 
pause. 

"My father, thou hast at last come for me," 
she said in Spanish. 

As she uttered the words, she saw her mistake. 
Bursting into violent sobbing, she sank upon the 
hardened earth floor and clasped the feet of 
Lone Wolf. 

With an unaccountable surge of tenderness in 
his heart, Lone Wolf lifted her up. She clung 
to him in an utter abandonment of grief, mur- 
muring broken words. He noticed that in one 
hand she held a baked clay doll with curiously 
twisted arms; and, also, that about her throat 
she wore a tiny crucifix of the sacred Chalchi- 
huitl or Turquoise. 

"Friend, friend," she sobbed, "Is it not a 
friend?" 

"Why not?" he whispered soothingly. 

43 



And, tossing her to his shoulder, he stole away 
with less noise in his going than an autumn leaf 
in its fall. 

"Thy name, little one?" He spoke to her in 
the sweet Spanish diminutives from the first. 

"Rosita Zamacona," she answered promptly. 

"Rosita — little Rose — ay, thou art a little 
rose!" 

That she was of good Spanish parentage there 
could be no doubt. Indeed, she herself knew 
that she was a descendant of one of those follow- 
ers of Coronado who, a century earlier, had pen- 
etrated farther north than they were aware in 
their search for the Seven Cities of Cibola. 
Having settled among the tribes of the north of 
Mexico, they had in time become so identified 
with them as to be neutral witnesses of the con- 
flict that came about at a later period between 
the Spanish and the Indians; and this child of 
brave and adventurous pioneers had the advan- 
tages of her Indian association with those of her 
inherited tastes and traditions. 

Now, with no guardian and no playmate but 
this unknown hero who had come to her out of 
the smoke, she wandered on, day after day, over 
the face of the earth. Such is the chance of war 
and of women. 

When she was weary, he carried her. When 
she was grieved, he solaced her. When she 
hungered, he gathered what he could from nig- 
gardly nature to satisfy her. For days and days 
they lived on the tips of willows and the bark of 
trees, regretting that the season of tasajo and 
pinyon nuts was not with them, and that they 
could derive no sustenance from the yucca weed, 
called by the Spanish Fathers "the candle-stick 
of Our Lord." 

But every season was theirs in time, for almost 
a year and a half were they in crossing the land. 

44 



They covered leagues of dusty grey sage bush 
prairie, following Indian trails past the brown 
buffaloes grazing on the stilled heaving of the 
uplands: along the lines of silvery trembling 
cottonwoods that marked the course of some in- 
verted river such as there are many of in the 
west, with their water underneath and their 
sandy beds on top, crossing the big ones on rafts 
and fording the small ones: skirting many vil- 
lages and surmounting many mesas: seeing 
bleaching bones of many men and animals and 
the charred ashes of prairie fires. The Indian 
and buffalo trails were found by them in even 
better state of transit than were those found by 
de Soto and the early explorers. 

Finally, threading through mountain passes, 
they struck into one of the great trails from east 
to west by which Cabega de Vaca crossed the 
continent. Week after week, and month after 
month they went onward, led, as Lone Wolf ex- 
plained to Rosita, by Michabo, the Great White 
Hare — by which he meant the Dawn of a New 
Day — Michabo, whose father was the West 
Wind and whose mother was the Moon. And 
he told her the Indian story of how Michabo 
had once upon a time made the wonderful earth 
upon which they were out of a grain of sand 
brought from the deepest part of the ocean : how 
he set it floating upon the waters until it grew 
to such a size that a young and mighty wolf, con- 
stantly running around it, died of old age before 
he reached the point from which he had started. 

Ill 

One morning in the light of the early sunrise, 
the wanderers were preparing for yet another 
day's journey, when they saw two men standing 
beside them on a bank of the river near where 



45 



they had slept. Both were white, one a vener- 
able Spanish priest and the other a young Dutch 
trapper. 

Greetings were exchanged in Spanish, which 
they all spoke, and Lone Wolf and Rosita were 
asked to breakfast with the others. After the 
frugal meal, they lingered on the bank in com- 
panionable silence. At last Lone Wolf roused 
himself, smiled, and said, 

"The Zunis sit together in silence when they 
would know each other." 

"An excellent custom," observed the Priest. 

"A good preparation for the peace-pipe" said 
Lone Wolf. 

He draw forth from a skin pouch a pipe of 
singular and beautiful workmanship. Carefully 
and slowly he filled it with a light colored tobac- 
co, and passed it to Rosita. By an ember from 
their dying camp fire she lighted it and passed 
it back to Lone Wolf. With ceremonious move- 
ments, he then arose and stood facing the north. 

"Father of the Dead, bear witness!" was the 
invocation that he uttered in low tones. 

He bowed once to the Earth : he bowed once 
to the Sky: he bowed once to each of the four 
Cardinal Points. Next he handed the pipe to 
the Priest who, in turn, observed the same cere- 
monial and passed it on to the Trapper who, 
likewise, made obeisance to the Invisible 
Powers. 

"You have journeyed far?" asked the Priest. 

Lone Wolf told of his past life and recent 
wanderings, and of Rosita. 

"We have come from the land of the White 
Men on the edge of the ocean," explained the 
young Trapper. 

"A long travelling," said Lone Wolf. 

"A long travelling," agreed the Priest. 

"But we rest here," said the Trapper. 

46 



"How is that?" asked Lone Wolf. 

"I am grown old and worn in the service of 
Mother Church," said the Priest. "My yearly 
circuit has been a large one, to far distant points 
where missions have been established. I can do 
no more. This youth — my son in Christ — (he 
laid his hand affectionately on the Trapper's 
shoulder) has decided with me to make our final 
lingering on this spot. It is a central place for 
a trader in pelts. The dwellings of settlers are 
not far away." 

"We, too, will stop here," said Lone Wolf. 

"Good!" cried the Trapper, his gaze seeking 
that of Rosita. 

"You make a sudden decision," said the Priest, 
"but I believe you will not regret it. Nor shall 
we," he added courteously. 

So they rested — these remnants of the older 
civilizations — at the end of the trail to which 
they had been led by Michabo, the Dawn of a 
New Day, whose father is the West Wind and 
whose mother is the Moon. 



47 



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